Overview
The development of a school district's budget is a long-range process. There are several steps, and the individuals involved in this process need to be vigilant as new information coming to the school district will often impact the district's overall budget and local levy amounts.
Budget Development and Planning Process Overview
This overview page provides all the details of the process, broken down into seven distinct steps (plus a helpful resources section):
- Step #1 - Development of a Proposed Budget
- Step #2 - Budget Hearing Requirements
- Step #3 - Annual Meeting Requirements
- Step #4 - Original Budget Adoption Procedure
- Step #5 - Setting of the Levy and a Sufficient Tax Amount Requirements
- Step #6 - Guidance for Completing the PI-401
- Step #7 - Budget Changes/Amendments Process
- Resources and More Information
Hearing and Adoption
The Budget Hearing and Adoption Workbook contains a series of Excel spreadsheets that may be used to format your district's budget adoption and the required budget publishing. Budget hearing and adoption requirement and timeline resources are also available.
School Fees
The Wisconsin Constitution, Art. X, sec. 3 limits the school district's authority to assess these fees except under limited circumstances. Therefore, great care must be taken to ensure that any "user fees" are legally authorized. This information sheet is designed to explain what those limits are and answer the most common questions that may arise.
SFS Executable Worksheets
These worksheets are Microsoft Excel files containing pre-written formulas that calculate school finance computations (district users enter their specific data elements and the worksheet computes the results). Some recent years' Excel files contain a second, non-executable spreadsheet that can be printed and filled-in by hand as well.